Dodger Stadium does not want to go the way of other sport venues that turn their backs on their traditional names in place of a revolving door of paid corporate names that leave fans cold. Instead, the Los Angeles Dodgers team has retained the William Morris agency to seek strategic branding opportunities that include naming rights on properties around Dodger Stadium. Rather than putting a sponsor's name on their stadium, the team is exploring sponsorships for everything from the bullpens, baselines and team dugouts to a new retail and restaurant facility to be built next to the ballpark.

NBC Universal's local stations' Web sites will stop being "adjunct" to the TV stations and will be redesigned as local portals, to try to snag more local ad revenue. The sites will downplay the station call letters and focus on particular cities. For instance, in New York wnbc.com will become nbcnewyork.com. In years past, station identification has been seen as key in promoting local media. Online, however, media outlets are often secondary to the information they provide to users who search on Google or Yahoo for specific events or products. The new sites will still offer information …

The Economist has climbed to the top of the financial publishing heap, boasting advertising that's up 6% so far this year. Managing director Paul Rossi says he is now hoping that "green"-oriented companies will fill the ad void left by auto and finance companies. The environment represents one of the few potential growth industries in the U.S. right now, as he sees it, with both presidential candidates favoring job creation in environmental-oriented channels. Rossi also says a successful innovation has been offering loyal readers three-year subscriptions, instead of one or two-year deals. Single copies carry a hefty …

Long Island daily Newsday has been losing money for at least three years, but turned a profit in the first half of 2008 because of a one-time tax change, says new owner Cablevision in a regulatory filing. The SEC document offers a rare peek into a newspaper's finances. Cablevision says Newsday lost $80.8 million in 2007, down from $282 million in 2006 and $414 million in 2005. Advertising and circulation revenue fell each year, but the newspaper managed to cut expenses, including chopping 330 positions during those three years combined and more than 200 this year.

Discovery Communications, owner of the Discovery television channel, plans to sell more content to other broadcasters to lift revenue and bolster its brand, says CEO David Zaslav. Discovery is moving away from a strategy of keeping shows exclusively for itself. It is now actively trying to sell programming from Planet Green, Animal Planet and its other channels. "We are looking to take advantage of our 20-year library and the strong international marketplace" for such content, says Zaslav. In the second quarter, Discovery's international sales rose 21%, while U.S. revenue gained 11% percent. The company's international operating margin …

Newsweek will release a collection of its election coverage as an e-book series for Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader. It is the first magazine to publish collected coverage on Kindle. The e-books, packaged as biographies of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, includes archived reporting and commentary from Newsweek's pages. Titled "Mr. Cool," "Mr. Hot," "The Insider" and "The Outsider" for Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, respectively. The books will be released Oct. 15 at $9.99 a piece. The magazine-Kindle project "gives readers something with the breadth of a political biography, but with …

Howard Stern, the syndicated morning radio shock jock, has lost more than his huge national audience since jumping to satellite radio three years ago. Where once Stern commanded a parade of Hollywood's hottest stars -- George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts -- today he touts appearances by B-List celebs, such as Chevy Chase, Joan Rivers and Hulk Hogan. The radio personality's leap from traditional media to a niche platform has come at a heavy price -- namely, cultural relevancy. He got unregulated creative independence and a lucrative five-year contract. But his past triumphs, including a hit movie, and …

When the share price of a top marketer such as General Motors plummets 31%, as it did last week, media sellers and media agencies brace for fallout that could leave them holding the bag for millions of media time. GM's Mark McNabb says no media outlet has asked GM to switch to cash-up-front status yet, but agencies and media sellers are still doing what they can to limit their liability and avoid cancellations. Look for the first real impact to come in early 2009 among financial, automotive, retail and travel marketers. "The first quarter will be really scary," especially …

When it completes its acquisition of TNS by early November, WPP will still be the No. 2 ad agency holding company behind Omnicom -- but the gap will be significantly narrower. A key benefit: the TNS acquisition will enable WPP to become much less reliant on ad-related businesses, which will help during the economic downturn. With TNS, WPP's ad businesses will contribute just 40% to the holding company's revenue. TNS will remain a distinct and separate brand, managed within WPP's research arm, the Kantar Group, headed by Kantar CEO Eric Salama. TNS CEO Donald Brydon says he …